This special grade pan-fired tea is the last purchase from my Japan trip last May. It’s produced in Ureshino, Saga prefecture, a tea region that contributes approximately 1% of Japan’s overall tea production.
I bought this tea at Soejimaen’s shop that’s located inside Wataya Besso, an upscale onsen hotel, just a couple of minutes’ walk from the cheaper spot where I stayed.
Soejimaen is a fourth generation tea producer that’s committed to cultivating tea that are pesticide-free or with reduced pesticides. It operates two plantations with a total area of 3 hectares, including a field at an altitude of around 400 to 500 metres. Instead of chemical fertilisers, the farm uses bokashi fertilisers and natural insect repellants.
This particular kamairicha is made from tea leaves grown in the field on higher altitude, so they were cultivated without the use of pesticides.
The packaging is simple but attractive, containing 80g of tea leaves. I had asked one of the staff manning the shop there if they knew what cultivar was used, and he had said it was a blend of Okumusashi with others. I don’t think I have drunk any single-cultivar tea made of Okumusashi. It would be great to look for tea made solely with this cultivar some other time.
The dry leaves were green and curly, like the tamaryokucha that’s characteristic of the region. There was a pleasant toasty aroma typical of kamairicha.
Recommended brewing parameters were 4g steeped for 90 seconds in 80°C water. I used 150ml.
The resulting tea liquor was light yellow with a hint of grassy aroma. It tasted very sweet, with a nutty note. Texture in the mouth was mildly astringent.
The leaves were good for another 3 steepings, without losing flavours too much.
From what I could see, the used leaves were somewhat on the big side and some had not fully unfurled. It made me wonder if I should have made another steeping, but I think that would have been pushing it.
I was told by a tea friend recently, that remaining unfurled leaves don’t always mean you have not fully unlocked all flavours. He said instead of trying to max them out, one should stop at the point where the flavours are still strong and memorable, usually up to the 3rd steeping. Hmmm.
Anyway, Soejimaen is an interesting establishment in Ureshino. It’s actively involved in tea tourism, usually by collaborating with other tea farmers, inns and potteries to promote Ureshino products. If you have been following this blog long enough, you might recall I did a bucket list of tea regions to visit and Ureshino is one of them for its tea tourism project.
Regrettably this trip I didn’t get to participate in tea activities due to heavy rain on the two days I was there. I was also quite sick, in fact, and the only consolation for me was the hotspring at the inn I stayed at, as Ureshino is well-known as an onsen town. Actually I had wanted to splurge and book Wataya Besso for my stay, but there wasn’t any available suitable room for that period. Well, there’s always next time, I suppose!
茶柱 The Floating Tea Stem 